[288] [A reminiscence of Newstead. Compare Moore's song, "Oft in the Stilly Night"—
"I feel like one
Who treads alone
Some banquet-hall deserted.">[
[FB] {235}
A small, snug chamber on a winter's night,
Well furnished with a book, friend, girl, or glass, etc.—[MS.]
[FC] I pass my days in long dull galleries solely.—[MS. erased.]
[289] [When this stanza was written Byron was domiciled in the Palazzo Guiccioli (in the Via di Porta Adriana) at Ravenna; but he may have had in his mind the monks' refectory at Newstead Abbey, "the dark gallery, where his fathers frowned" (Lara, Canto I. line 137), or the corridors which form the upper story of the cloisters.]
[290] ["Nabuchodonosor," here used metri gratiâ, is Latin (see the Vulgate) and French (see J.P. De Béranger, Chansons Inédites, 1828, p. 48) for Nebuchadnezzar.]